The 17 recommendations fall into 4 thematic groups. The first 6 relate to physical and soft infrastructure for health and health-related services. The second 6 relate to specific clinical service areas, including child health and aged care. Topics covered include broadband, a national arts and health framework, maternity and early childhood care, telehealth and Indigenous health.

This guidebook by the World Health Organisation sets out the public health rationale for making it easier for adolescents to obtain the health services that they need to protect and improve their health and well-being, including sexual and reproductive health services.

It defines "adolescent-friendly health services" from the perspective of quality, and provides step-by-step guidance on developing quality standards for health service provision to adolescents. Drawing upon international experience, it is also tailored to national epidemiological, social, cultural and economic realities, and provides guidance on identifying what actions need to be taken to assess whether appropriate standards have been achieved.

Australian hospital statistics 2011-12 presents a detailed overview of Australia's public and private hospitals. In 2011-12, there were about 9.3 million separations from hospitals, including: 5.5 million same-day acute separations; 3.7 million overnight acute separations; about 423,000 sub-acute and non-acute separations.

There were also 7.8 million non-admitted patient emergency services and more than 45 million outpatient services provided by public hospitals.

"The term "zebra" is a medical slang for a surprising diagnosis. Physicians are taught since medical school to concentrate on the more common diseases: "when you hear a gallop, you should think about a horse, not a zebra". FindZebra is designed to help in those cases when the equine turns out to be a zebra.

There are close to 7,000 rare diseases recognized by rare disease organizations. We index over 31,000 documents covering rare and genetic diseases from 10 reputable sources. Given the number of rare diseases and rate of publication, we think FindZebra is a good companion for medical professionals."

Over 90% of older Australians intend to stay in their current accommodation rather than move to aged care or move at all, and this intent is strongest among older people who own their own homes, according to a report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Many older Australians report a desire to age in place. The report,The desire to age in place among older Australians, examines the housing circumstances of older Australians by different tenure type (home owners, mortgagees and renters) and the desire to age there.

A House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Health and Ageing report entitled Diseases Have No Borders has been released with a number of recommendations, including border security, systems for migrant health, advice for Australians travelling overseas, pandemic planning, further research and addressing a shortage of skilled public health workers.

Health Minister Jillian Skinner last week announced the appointment of members to the NSW Government's first Rural Health Advisory Committee. Mrs Skinner said the 20-member Ministerial Advisory Committee for Rural Health will advise her on ways to improve patient care in rural NSW.

"Since coming to Government, the NSW Liberals & Nationals have made their commitment to rural health clear : we want to ensure patients in our country areas receive quality care, closer to home," Mrs Skinner said. "My decision to create a Ministerial Advisory Committee for Rural Health forms part of this commitment." Mrs Skinner said the 20 members of the Ministerial Advisory Committee for Rural Health had a wide range of experience in medicine, nursing, allied health, academia, administration and management.

The committee will be co-chaired by Lismore surgeon Associate Professor Austin Curtin and the NSW Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health, Melinda Pavey, who will work with committee members to develop strategies to enhance health services in rural and regional NSW. Western NSW is well represented by Scott McLachlan (CEO-WNSWLHD), Dr. Robin Williams (Chair WNSWLHD), Assoc. Professor David Perkins (Broken Hill Centre for Remote Health Research) and Val Keed (Peak Hill AMS).

Hospitalisations due to falls by older people, Australia 2009-10 is the sixth in a series on hospitalisations due to falls by Australians aged 65 and over, and focuses on 2009-10. The estimated number of hospitalised injury cases due to falls in older people was 83,800 - more than 5,100 extra cases than in 2008-09 - and about 70% of these falls happened in either the home or an aged care facility. One in every 10 days spent in hospital by a person aged 65 and older in 2009-10 was directly attributable to an injurious fall (1.3 million patient days over the year), and the average total length of stay per fall injury case was estimated to be 15.5 days.